


the sum of his parts

by singitagain



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: A ton of rimming, Affection, Anal Sex, Character Study, Fingering, Foreplay, Gentleness, Insecurities, Intimacy, Kink, M/M, Neediness, Rimming, Slow Build, Trust, body image issues, bottom!wald, deeply intimate sex, marathon rimjob, mayor!pot, negotiating, no bathroom stuff don't worry, nygmobbleporn, porn with feeling, teeeeeeeasing, torturous pleasure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 09:41:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17620052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singitagain/pseuds/singitagain
Summary: Two men and a chair; dinner is served. Oswald and Ed try to figure each other out, inside and out, and there's much for them to talk about.





	the sum of his parts

**Author's Note:**

> This is it, the big one; the one fic to rule the other fics I've written. Every time I tell myself I'm all written out, that I'm done writing lavishly descriptive things of a nature that makes me bury my face into my hands, another idea comes along and I have to chase it. For all the filthy, filthy smut all up in here, I've also put a lot of thought into how Oswald and Edward play off each other, because it matters. I want them to feel real; I want both to entertain and to keep you wondering. I hope you like it.
> 
> As always, because I'm (a sleep-deprived) human and have no editor/beta-reader, I do apologize for formatting, grammar, or punctuation errors you may find. I continue to edit this feverishly on the regular.

Ed hangs back, smiling behind his steepled fingers.

The stage is set: bed neatly made and the lights turned low, a fire snapping into fresh chunks of wood, well-fed for the rest of the night. Oswald will want to feel within his element; all that's missing is the ice bucket of champagne and cliched rose petals sprinkling the sheets, though that's a level of sentimentality he knows even Oswald could do without.

Oswald's barely a few steps into his bedroom when he stops, going still, as if he's just left the bath and come back to find everything tossed around, a post-home invasion sort of war zone. But nothing's amiss; his gaze sweeps over bed and night-table, dresser and desk. All Elijah's _bric-a-brac_ is just the way he left it.

"Give up?" Ed presses, too quickly. He's well aware it's a risk with Oswald tired and edging on cranky after a day packed with photo-ops and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, after too many hours up on his feet. If Oswald appreciates his attempt to create a sensual atmosphere, Ed is not seeing it.

"Just tell me, what's--"

Oswald trails off. 

And there it is.

Grinning, Ed comes up behind him to stand at his side, close enough to catch a whiff of some lavender hand lotion (for sensitive skin, naturally) that Oswald likes to rub into his elbows and wind-chafed knuckles.

"It seems there's some manner of stool next to my bed."

"Yes."

"...with no seat."

Ed feels a sharp swooping in his guts. His heart thunders from somewhere outside his chest.

"Not quite." He raises his pointer fingers to trace the shape of a circle in the air. "Just a hole in the middle."

Oswald blinks at the throw pillow - one from his bed, no less! - on the floor just under the seat. Then he turns to Ed, frowning, lips moving before words even come to him. Ed notices a stubborn black fleck of eyeliner at the corner of Oswald's left eye. It's distracting.

" _Why_ would _anyone_ \--" Oswald starts, then stops again as he catches the hopeful look on Ed's face, the nervous flick of his tongue over his lips, and a horrible sense of clarity dawns on him. His mouth slips open, wordless.

"Just sit back and relax," Ed tosses it out all too casually, with a touch of amusement, even, while Oswald gapes at him. "Couldn't be easier."

The hundreds of micro-expressions flashing in Oswald's eyes is nothing short of incredible, lasting one long, hard beat before something in him snaps and he barks out a laugh. He claps a hand to his forehead, massaging a swollen vein in his temple for a minute.

" _Wow_. That just says it all, doesn't it?"

Ed's smile folds in on itself. He swallows, on guard.

"I don't even know where to start." Oswald tosses up that same hand and lets it slap to his side, a helpless chuckle bubbling up in his throat. "I'm at a loss! ...The fact that you dragged me over for _that_ , thinking it was a very good idea? Or the part where you spent time and-or actual money on what is essentially --"

"--A scalp massage."

Oswald rears his head back at the interruption, his face twisting up. "...what?"

"Twenty minutes," Ed offers.

They look each other square in the eyes.

Then Oswald snorts. "Ed..." He wets his lips, hobbling a step closer to him. "...the thing about negoti-"

" _Thirty_." Ed presses. "Look, Oswald..." he holds up his hands, right as Oswald half-turns, seeming like he might tuck his own under his armpits, shutting him out. "Just try it - _please_." 

Oswald glances back to him, face taut and guarded; but his eyes are searching for something other than an argument.

"Give me five minutes," Ed continues, "and I promise you won't regret it. You even said it yourself: you're feeling tense; you wanted a nice night. And I just--" Ed hesitates. "--I'll go slow. Anything you want afterwards is fair game."

A beat.

Oswald's lashes flutter nervously. "Ed..." He begins, shifting his weight, and his voice is quieter now; softer than Ed expects. Ed waits, but he doesn't finish.

"Okay - you get the massage either way. Thirty minutes, redeemable _anytime_."

Ed can tell from the slight skew of his mouth and his working jaw that Oswald's worrying the inside of his cheek. Ed wants to tell him it's bad to make a habit of it, that he'd give himself an ulcer that way.

"...deal?"

Oswald inhales sharply, steadying himself. He looks Ed up and down.

"... _Forty minutes,_ " He says, finally, with a challenging uptilt to his chin. "I keep my robe on. ... _And_ this whole _thing_ is over when I say it is, if I say it is. _No_ exceptions."

Ed takes it in.

A beat passes. Then another.

"Fine."

They don't shake on it.

Oswald turns immediately, hobbling past Ed to the _abomination_ poised over his rug, a plastic ring of a seat on squat, stainless steel peg-legs. The stool is even smaller closer up, rising a foot or so over the pillow underneath. Standing, slouched, he takes in the whole set-up, hesitating like he's waiting for it all to make sense, for an epiphany to crash over him like a wave of biblical proportions.

But, no.

It's just a rimming chair in his bedroom. 

The answer to a question only Ed had asked.

Oswald pulls in another big breath.

"I don't know what I was expecting," he muses aloud, and Ed wonders if that's true. "... _who_ invented this? Actually --" he lifts a hand, preemptively, to cut off an explanation. "--you know what? I don't care."

Ed puts his hands on his hips, looking down, somewhere between them. "I think you'll like it," He tries, while Oswald is in the middle of easing himself down, wincing as he braces the bed for support. The knee, of course, is always a problem. He makes no move to help him, realizing that In some situations it's better not to, better to let Oswald do things on his own terms, even if it hurts. He finds consolation in the fact that whatever pain he's feeling now is temporary, soon to become a distant memory. "...once you get over the design." And the _presentation_. "It's.. really not that different from how you're used to it. We've been through this before. It's still just you and me."

Silent, Oswald searches for something to look at, something that isn't Ed, struggling to figure out what to do with his arms until he stops gnawing his nails and finally crosses them. "I know that."

He doesn't even sound angry, indignant. Behind the nervousness is something Ed can't begin to place, and he can feel the hairs along his forearms and the nape of his neck standing on end.

"It's your call, Oswald." Ed grits out, the words sticking like fishbones in his throat. It feels like it might be the hardest thing he's had to say in a long time.

Oswald looks up at him, then. Then back to the rug, giving the barest hint of a nod, maybe more to himself than to him.

"Well. Let's get on with it."

He sniffs and gestures vaguely to the rug. 

"It's _only_ five minutes, right?"

The way Oswald says it makes _only_ a loaded word. 

"Yeah. Or less. If... that's what you want."

"I guess I just won't know until I try, huh."

Oswald laughs a little at that, a hoarseness to his voice, though neither of them seem to find it very funny.

With nothing really left to say Ed gets down on his hands and knees, no real dignified way of lying back and scooching up under the stool. He props his head up on the pillow, remembering how much he wanted this, _still_ wants this, that he's been full-in from the moment the seat came in parts he assembled while Oswald was out. He had even fixed a few unassuming, strategically-placed LED lights to the underside, anticipating challenges. It takes a moment for Ed's eyes to adjust to their soft, white glow, but only a moment. There's little to see; Oswald's robe blacks out his view.

Ed considers giving him a poke or a gentle tug on a loose fold of fabric. He reconsiders.

"Whenever you're ready," he prompts, willing a patience he barely feels.

Oswald says nothing to that, and Ed fears the worst. He realizes, only moments later, that there's no reason to, because Oswald is getting something out of this too, he has to be, something _more_ that he's decided is worth the trouble of lifting up and rearranging his bathrobe when he could otherwise limp right out of the room.

Up through the opening in the seat, as he squints against the light, is what Ed's sure is the best thing that he'll see all week: a flash of silk brocade and pale skin; the smooth, easy parting of Oswald's ass - downright luxurious - as he squats over him; the fat spread of his cheeks when he does sink down and blot out the porthole, the tenderest part of him laid bare, the dusty-pinkness of it doing terrible knotting things to Ed's insides. 

Oswald's robe falls around him like a curtain. A private viewing for one. 

Ed remembers to blink. He swallows and doesn't know where all the spit in his mouth has gone.

It almost feels a little like cheating, _instant ass_ , without the usual fuss. Not to say it didn't have its charm, all the wiggling Oswald could do around his mouth, all but begging him to be spanked, if his body could talk. But there's no weaseling out of his grip or need to drag him back into the thrust of his tongue. His hands are free, too, and it's not hard to think of ways to use them. He had earned this fairly. He'd make it count.

"Five minutes," Oswald reminds him. "Starting now."

It's meant to sound at least somewhat authoritative, but Ed can't help the eager flutter in his guts any more than he can help smiling into Oswald's bath-warmed skin, nipping at the inner-edge of an ass cheek. The effect is like sticking Oswald with a tack. It never gets old.

" _Ggh! _" Oswald jerks, hissing. "Keep that up and --"__

____

____

His skin's already pinking, of course. Ed presses his lips to it soft, as sweet an apology as he can make it. " _\--Shh."_

"...Did you just _shush_ me?"

He actually sounds offended.

"Yes." Ed mumbles, skimming his lips along the stretch of his taint. "So, _shhh._ Enjoy it."

He drops off there, lets Oswald have the final word, if he wants, while kissing him wet, feathering his tongue along the seam. The seat wobbles slightly; Ed's guessing Oswald has clamped his fingers around it, holding tight. It wobbles again when Ed breathes on that thin sheen of saliva, and he hears Oswald say, very softly, _oh fuck_. Ed takes it as his closing argument.

__Despite his initial misgivings Ed notices Oswald's body warming up to the idea of being spoiled, as bodies often do. Oswald sighs, rests heavier over the stool when Ed lets him breathe, when Ed lets him wait and start to want. His cute little hole pulses lazily, curious, as Ed skirts it, licking him all around. Close but not close enough.__

____

____

__Watching him shift over the clear of the plastic, Ed contemplates what he's missing. Was Oswald back to folding his arms and staring a hole into the wall, flushed with boyish shame? Were his lips parted to breathe or his teeth set, a muscle flexing at the hinge of his jaw? Chewing his nails down or covering his mouth? For everything a moan or a trembling gasp could tell him, there was something else, something meaningful it couldn't._ _

__Ed reaches a hand around the stool and finds Oswald's thigh. He strokes it, gentle. A tendon jumps under his touch._ _

__"Doing okay?"_ _

__"...Fine, sure -- yes."_ _

__He's spacey, tripping over words, and six minutes are gone._ _

__"Alrighty."_ _

__Ed pats his leg, feeling the brush of Oswald's hand on his, deliberately or accidentally, before Ed's draws back._ _

__He doesn't bother asking if he should keep going - because they know he will until told otherwise, that neither of them do things by half-measures if they can help it, and that what he's giving now is with the understanding that it's more a means to an end than the end itself, even if Oswald could come just like that in the way few seem to be able to, cock and balls untouched and his hands tied behind his back._ _

__Ed almost feels a little sorry for him, for the softness of his flesh, its weakness, when only the first blessed touch of tongue steals a noise from his throat; a sweet, strangled little thing, like he's cracking him open. A sound Ed can feel reaching down between his legs and squeezing._ _

__Fresh out of the tub, Oswald's taste is subtler and softer around the edges, a little earthy, like the smell of sun-warmed flesh; it's a hard thing to resist, hard to commit to laying long, gliding strokes to the soft of his balls and back when he already wants in._ _

__The pleasure cuts Oswald like glass. He's squirming, a hitch in his lungs before Ed's even licked the split of his ass silky-slick, before he's zeroed in on the wrinkle of his anus and lapped at him, kittenish tongue-flutters circling over and around. Oswald sighs like he's dying and Ed wonders who's missed this more._ _

__He watches him scrunch up, relax. Lets him sag and pull in a proper breath through the heat and lust snarling up his guts while he rests his tongue a minute. Pauses are important, felt, too, like that hard beat of silence, that collective silent gasp, before the next orchestral hit. Ed wets a fingertip and sweeps it over him, faintly amused._ _

__"Time?" He teases._ _

__Oswald doesn't answer. He may be on some higher plane of existence, which is as big a compliment as they come. It doesn't take much to drag him back to earth either way, easily accomplished running the blade of his tongue along Oswald's shying hole, harder, deeper, until he's burying into his crack and working his jaw, flicking and flicking and all of Oswald is clenching so hard he's lifting up off his seat a little. Ed's hands find his hips and jam him back down, the globes of Oswald's ass pressing flatter, whiter, forced to spread for him. He's reminded of the first time he had pressed a kiss between Oswald's legs, right where no one else had ever touched him. It had nearly launched him into the headboard._ _

_Mayor Cobblepot admitted to Gotham General with self-inflicted concussion._

__What a story that would have been between them. He can just imagine the dark, knowing look Oswald would slant his way at any reminder while out in public._ _

_Edward -- don't you dare, I am WARNING you._

__It makes his chest go tighter than it should._ _

__He stops, not when Oswald trembles and keens, straining against his grip, but when his own jaw cramps up a bit. He's out of practice. But they're both stubborn; cut from the same cloth that way. He lets him go and Oswald doesn't try to stand. He's flushing nicely, just a touch, where blood pools, fizzling, alive, nerves hiving away. The way the open seat frames Oswald's hole, it's like looking up into a perfect bullseye._ _

Ed feels his own pulse in his cock, hard and ropy. Oh, it _wants_ ; god, does it want. But he'd hate to rush the process when the process is everything, and as reason and self-control threaten to leave his body. This moment is all about the careful, quiet observations and explorations, fingers and lips and tongue plying, seeking answers in the sweetness of his hole and the gritty heat of his insides, all building towards a hypothesis well on its way to being proven right. Yes, Oswald _could_ learn to love a rimming chair. But of course, like any good hypothesis, it's one that exists to be tested and retested before any hard conclusive statements could be made.

__"Do you know what I see, Oswald?" He asks._ _

__He slicks a finger again with all the nonchalance of licking a stamp before he puts it where it needs to be, working sure, patient circles over the crease of Oswald's anus._ _

__Oswald moans through his nose._ _

__"Literally speaking..." he pants out. "I'd... rather not."_ _

__"It was a rhetorical question."_ _

__"Was it? Then I apologize. ...Please, continue."_ _

Ed snorts. Classic textbook _Oswald_.

"I see a man," he says, a smirk edging his voice as he rubs and rubs, "...who _knows_ what he wants."

That's left to hang in the air a moment as he nuzzles, smothers himself into Oswald's ass, humming low in his throat. He loosens his jaw and presses open-mouthed kisses up his crack, stopping to nibble the soft spill of an ass cheek just over the lip of the porthole. "...who _deserves_ pleasure," Ed adds, between delicate, wet smacks of his lips.

__Oswald lets out a shuddering exhale. He's pulsing against him, miserable._ _

"You _want_ me," Ed grits out against his skin in a voice low and dark, a voice at odds with the careful fingers he rests on Oswald and inches up on either side of his hole, easing them apart. Skin stretches obligingly, beckoning, gleaming with the slick of his spit. There's a reverence, a _relish_ , to the beat of silence Ed reserves for this. No one talks, no one breathes.

__Then, something pops in the fire, making Oswald jump.__

____

____

And the spell breaks.

Ed's smirk softens into a smile. He waits for Oswald to settle again, for him to unclench and the skin around to spread deliciously inches from his face, fucking _lush_ , even if his hole proper is still trembling-tight.

 _There's a process_ , Ed reminds himself.

__Details are important._ _

Eyes closing, he tries not to think about the growing cramp in his balls and tucks into Oswald, lets his tongue lead, soft and savouring, before his mouth touches down and finds its place, melting around him. It's not _fucking_ ; it's too gentle and lingering for that, the suckling and the gluey webs of spit licked away and re-laid, the love in every kiss he lays deep into Oswald's skin until he shines. It's a sweetness that hurts, that makes him throb and Oswald breathe heavy, moaning like a wounded animal.

__They challenge each other, like in everything else; unravel together._ _

__It's Oswald who does first, just as Ed's jaw is starting to ache again. He pulls back to look at him, really look at him, a conspirator's smile on his lips._ _

" _Oh_ , Oswald..." he breathes, mesmerized. " _Look_ at you, opening up for me."

They've reached that tipping point - the part Ed thinks he loves the most - where any shame lumping in Oswald's throat has nothing on the sheer _want_ that's settled in his skin, his bones, like a bad itch. He's twitching like he's already taking cock, glossy-wet and _needy_ , wrenchingly needy, his ass pushing into the porthole with or without Oswald on board and ready to sell him out for anything it can get. More heat and pressure, more everything. Anything.

__A giddy-sick thrill vibrates in Ed's chest. He thumbs around his tender hole, sees it wink open to him, for him, a peeking inner-pinkness. Not a man alive could say no to that._ _

" _God_..." His voice is all smugness and gravel, coming from somewhere deep in his balls. "You're so hungry."

"... _Ed..._ " Oswald pleads.

Ed's itching, too. Throbbing, raw all over, like he's wrapped tight in hot wool blanket. Still, he spreads Oswald wide and slops kisses all around, everywhere but where Oswald needs it most, just to make him hiss and cry out.

" _Fuck_ \-- Ed--!"

__Ed, being Ed, doubles down, laying another heavy stripe into his cleft. Lets it drip before catching the damp on his tongue._ _

" _Enough!_ " Oswald rasps through his teeth. 

It's a tone with no room for negotiation and Oswald moves fast when he wants to, peeling himself off the seat like a ripped bandaid. Ed blinks though the light in the room and up into the face hovering over his. Oswald's on his knees beside him, eyes searing with a rare lust. 

____

____

The stool lifts away before Ed can shimmy out from under it, and then Oswald's fisting the front of his undershirt, yanking him up and closer to him with a fierce, unexpected strength that sucks the breath from Ed's lungs. Huffing, they paw at each other, at their clothes, kissing necks and blotchy, heaving chests, because Oswald won't have Ed's mouth on his, not right now.

__"Bed?" Ed husks, feeling the press of Oswald's bare cock flush to his belly, a blot of precome soaking into cotton._ _

" _Fuck it..._ "

__"You, or the bed?" It slips out uninvited, unapologetic. He's guessing Oswald doesn't trust his knees right now, like he doesn't trust his own jittery arms to be able to hoist him up onto the sprawling mattress._ _

__Oswald doesn't laugh, doesn't even dignify that with more than a hard look, the urgent clench of a jaw already sharp enough to cut glass._ _

__"Yeah, okay--"_ _

__Still mouthing jawlines and bare, gasping throats, he loops an arm around him, eases him down to the rug with the care of putting a sick child. Their gazes hold as kisses break; and as Oswald lays back, his robe fanning around him, there's a flicker in his eyes that seems to say that, one day, he'd sling a leg over Ed's waist with wordless determination and grind down on him, fucking _him_ brainless. That one day all of this, being touched and tasted from time to time, _appreciated_ , could become as normal-feeling to him as eating breakfast together. But today is not that day. Today, he defers to Ed and his experience and he yields, saving his daring and ambition, his hunger for power, for the city waiting just outside._ _

__Oswald brings up his knees as Ed digs into the pockets of his pajama pants for the lube. Thankfully, nothing has leaked._ _

" _Ed..._ " He pants, his eyes barely open. 

__"Just -- hold on."_ _

__Ed slips off his glasses and wrestles out of his shirt. He jerks down his pants, his briefs, with a jiggle of balls, dick curving thickly._ _

__"I don't care," there's a ragged, stressed edge to Oswald's voice, "just..."_ _

Ed feels a gut-twist of interest. It's the _crazy_ talking - desperately tempting. But while it's true that he's licked Oswald half to death, so glistening-wet and worked up that he might be good enough to push into without any extra glide, it's also true that this is Oswald. And Oswald, he knows, is perennially tight, wired to the teeth for one reason or another unless he's spent or in a dreamless sleep.

__Ed uncaps the lube with a flick of his thumb, squeezes into his palm. He's never greased himself faster in his life._ _

__"Trust me," he says, licking his lips, feeling like he's used those words especially often the last few days. "You'll thank me later."_ _

__Oswald hushes, only whimpering faintly when Ed shares some lube with him, smooths a few squirts of it over and in. At the end of the day he promised he'd take care of Oswald, too, do anything for him - and Oswald always holds him to it with that child-like, too-honest look in his eyes, a softness Ed still doesn't what to do with._ _

__Oswald turns his gaze away as Ed helps guide his knees to his chest, something Oswald seldom does for himself, like how he never spreads his cheeks, helpfully, to make an easier time of target-practice when it's Ed's _turn_ and they're both full of writhing impatience. He wishes Oswald would watch the way he liked watching Oswald's cock coming at him like a heat-seeking missile, the slow advance before it stretched and filled him. _ _

__He wonders if Oswald is like this with needles too._ _

"...all good?"

He figures asking is just a courtesy, at this point.

A hungry hole needs no instructions. Animal instinct takes over, Ed seeking, sinking into him with a groan. Oswald is all desperate heat and anxious muscle on the inside; so fucking good Ed goes a little dizzy from the start, his balls already so brutally full and pulling tighter, tighter, nearly more than he can stand. Oswald pounds the floor with his fist, just once, his face screwing up. His ribs are sharply visible with every shallowing breath he takes in. It always hurts some, and he knows Oswald can't hear him when he's like this; but Ed still tells him the same thing he'll always tell him, _just breathe_ , _relax_ , _it's okay_. He doesn't know if it's helping, if the sound of his voice is any comfort at all.

__There's no flash of anger, though. No snapping teeth or corded tendons in Oswald's neck. Ed keeps still as long as he needs to, Oswald quietly trembling around him._ _

__The fire crackles, softly. The mansion breathes; creaking, settling._ _

__"...okay." Oswald says, barely above a whisper._ _

It doesn't _feel_ okay, not yet. But he trusts Oswald to stop him, like Oswald trusts him to stop. And when Ed leans into him carefully, inching deeper, deeper, it's with the expectation that every second might be the last he gets to have. Oswald holds out - cries out behind his hand, before their bodies finally touch, press together, not quite chest-to-chest. Oswald grasps at him like he's drowning. He locks him between his knees and Ed feels the ragged sting of bitten nails raking his back, digging in.

It's true what they say, sometimes, that things often worsen before they get better. The _better_ does come, as Ed moves, shallow. As Ed breaks him in so tenderly and Oswald opens just as much as he needs to, struggling and then not struggling, panting as he lets it happen. The quivering pincer-grip of his legs eases up around Ed and Oswald smothers grateful kisses into the hollow of his throat and over his heartbeat, kissing him like he'd kiss the feet of an angry, merciful god.

Also true: _good things come to those who wait._

It's unreal, _incredible_ , the wild, punchy head-rush that rocks him while he fucks into the slippery clench of Oswald's insides. The whole floor seems to shift underneath them, lights and colours popping behind his eyes; and from somewhere else, their bodies humming, still heaving, Ed can still hear Oswald whining on every thrust, jagged, _broken_ little cries hitting pitches half-octaves higher than his own. That alone is enough to pull Ed apart from the seams. He's a little surprised when he feels Oswald's cock jerk between them, and not his own; when Oswald shudders and sobs into him and dampness spreads, blood-hot, smearing their bellies.

__

__

Oswald clings still, teeth and nails staking their claim while Ed grinds his hips and plunges in and out, working the _crazy_ out of his system. Oswald shakes under him; the lube is drying, a little grabby. But he takes it, choking noises through his teeth; he takes and takes, his little ass spread around his fat, veined cock, until Ed locks up and _can't_ anymore. A groan wrenched itself from his throat as he lurches, shooting come into his guts. Oswald's legs squeeze around him and they ride the tight shiver rippling through his body together, inside and out.

__Relief is sweet and sharp._ _

Gulping for air - speaking in broken, rasping whispers, _oh, fuck_ , _oh my god_ , the only words they can seem to remember - they settle, trembling against each other, their fevered skin. They stay like that a while, before Ed slides out of him. It's longer before Oswald lets him go, a slow unwinding of limbs. Ed rolls off him and sprawls back.

The bleachy come-smell hangs in the air. It sticks to his nostrils. 

__They come down slow, time slowing with them. Heads clear and bodies cool and no one talks, comfortable in their silence and with the loose, gentle throbbing felt down to the tips of the toes._ _

__It's nice._ _

Ed lolls his head to look at Oswald, his flush-rashed skin. Oswald's face is slack and sheening, smoothed of every line. He looks impossibly young in this moment; too _soft_ for Gotham. In some ways that isn't all untrue, he thinks.

__"What's black and white and red all over...?"_ _

__Ed ventures, words filling the space between them, lingering._ _

__Oswald stirs with the same reluctance he does in the morning and Ed feels a little trill inside him watching his eyelids flicker and drift open, pupils sharpening slightly._ _

__"...how clever," Oswald mumbles._ _

__Ed smiles a blandly pleasant smile. He's surprised Oswald bit at all, even for a low-hanging riddle. But he's also surprised that it's him doing the talking and not Oswald first, Oswald giggling, thrilled, then vaguely wistful over the secrets they kept pressed between them at night, things Gotham and no one in it could ever touch._ _

"Well, that was fun."

It's another minute before answers, huffing a hoarse, incredulous laugh. "If by 'fun' you are referring to an overwhelming experience that managed to be both horrifyingly awkward at one point and then..." there's the smallest pause as he frowns, a flicker of tenderness in his eyes, his voice, "...unspeakably _intimate_ the next, then, _yes_ \- it was definitely 'fun'."

The corner of Ed's mouth goes up. "So... I take it that you didn't care much for the chair?"

"You think?"

He throws Ed a pointed stare. "Ed, it's a _glorified_ toilet seat on legs. It's..." he grasps for words, face twisting up, "It's weird and uncomfortable, which, considering all the weird, uncomfortable things I have encountered in my lifetime, is saying a lot, and quite frankly I would be much happier with it in a dumpster. Preferably a flaming one."

The curve to Ed's lips bends into something wryer.

"I was hoping you'd have gotten used to it; you did seem to have thoroughly enjoyed yourself."

" _That_ is because _you_ were--!" He breaks off with a sharp sigh, lifting a hand to knead the bridge of his nose a moment. Jaw clenched, eyes fluttering shut. "Look, Ed," he tries again, careful, more controlled, "you were doing what you were doing, and that's fine, _whatever_ , I've made my peace with that. But having to sit in that _thing_ the entire time was-- "

"You could have walked, Oswald," Ed cuts in, soberly. "You said so yourself. You literally had _nothing_ to lose."

All the air and heat seems to rush out of Oswald's body. " _Yes_ \--" Ed can hear a sudden weariness leaching into his voice. He doesn't know what to make of it. "I _know_."

"Then, why stay?" Ed presses.

A beat passes, neither of them looking away from each other until Oswald finally closes his eyes. 

"...Because you came to me, when I needed you, and I saw you _beg_ for my company... and I..."

The sentence dangles, unfinished.

A little wrinkle appears between Ed's brows.

"You said... yes, for me?"

Oswald's mouth opens, then presses thin. He sighs through his nose. "...No, not entirely," is the answer he settles on.

Ed sees his gaze turn inward.

"I suppose I just..." he falters, again, a vaguely pained knit to his brow. "I needed to know what I mean to you, Ed."

The whites of Oswald's eyes gleam as he turns his gaze on him and they catch the light. "I, I wanted to understand what you see."

Ed hears the dry click of his own throat.

He doesn't ask Oswald if he has his answer now; if it is what he hoped it would be.

"So you agreed." Ed says, instead.

Oswald's expression stays soft, wrung-out. Something about it hooks deep into Ed's chest and pulls.

"Yes."

Ed lets that sit with him a while.

Firelight licks Oswald's collarbones and ribs and sharp-cut hips, all the places where bones lie closest to the skin. They look at each other long, calm, their sides heaving. Then they look up at the ceiling, Oswald first. Wind finds a crack in the window frame.

"Now, about that massage..." Oswald starts, later, as a warm, woozy-drunk sleepiness is pulling over them like a blanket. "I was thinking tomorrow, say, after five?"

"Seeing as I took the liberty of rearranging your schedules for tomorrow, I don't anticipate any unwelcome interruptions. I had assumed you would welcome the chance to rest and recover."

"You assumed correct."

Ed allows himself a little smile.

"...So, just the scalp?" It's pitched to sound more like a simple confirmation than anything else. "I know you said your shoulder was bothering you, with the weather being particularly unpleasant lately."

He has to bite back a remark about the pain Oswald could have lessened, about the rotator cuff strengthening exercises Oswald was as stubborn and lazy and reluctant to do now as he was then, when he was healing in bed, in Ed's own pajamas. There'd be time for badgering later, playful or otherwise; but in this moment, he thinks he understands what he needs to be, at least for now; what Oswald wants him to be. 

So Ed turns up his palm, sliding it partway across the stretch of floor between them. An offer, the way he's seen Oswald offer his to him sometimes, behind closed doors, when he sought a friend and not his chief of staff or co-conspirator.

Oswald considers it.

Then, after a time, as carefully as Ed had offered it, Oswald reaches out and gently closes the distance, their fingers brushing. They rest there, just like that, Oswald not closing his hand around his and Ed not stroking his thumb over him, neither one making demands of the other.

"We'll see." Oswald says, at last. A faint twist of a smile dimples one cheek, an afterthought; there and gone when Ed turns to look.


End file.
